Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Grade: B

I wish I could say that Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's stage classic is "a cut above your average musical." I mean, what better praise could you give to this story of a revenge-bent barber who slits throats and leaves the leftover body parts for a purveyor of meat pies? But the quality of the songs and the storytelling is all over the map, and even the lavish, computer-enhanced production design looks hokey at times.

That said, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are terrific. With their dark-rimmed eyes and ratty black & white hair they look like human-sized skunk twins. Sacha Baron Cohen is great as fraudulent hair tonic vendor, though Alan Rickman treads overly familiar waters in a villainous role that's too close to Severus Snape for comfort. I've never been a big Sondheim fan, which probably accounts for my tepid response to most of the songs. A couple of numbers are wonderful, however, most notably the ones that accompany the shaving contest between Sweeney Todd and Cohen's character, and the ditty during the mass cannibalism scene when Mrs. Lovett (Bonham Carter) treats her unknowing customers to her tasty new menu offering: human meat pies.

All things considered Sweeney Todd emerges as an ambitious but underwhelming Burton effort, along the lines of Sleepy Hollow. It ain't no Pee Wee's Big Adventure or Batman Returns, that's for sure.